Day 4 & 5 of project

After another early start we travelled to the school to continue with our teaching. We had new partners and new topics so we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the students so excited to learn. We have discovered that the board slap game is particularly popular. After eating lunch at our regular restaurant, we returned back to the school to play a challenging yet exhilarating game of football. We lost but we all had lots of fun. We started again on our exhausting construction work of building the concrete path. Some of us began to scrape down the walls of a very dusty classroom in order to prepare for painting. Suddenly, it began raining very heavily and we all rushed outside into the downpour to splash around in the warm rain. This was strange for us as it was unlike British rain. We got thoroughly soaked through which was fun at the time but soggy on the bus and boat later. In the evening we ate at a new restaurant called Eleven . We had meals such as Cambodian steak (lol lac, tofu mushroom amok and stir fried vegetables. Finally, we went to the cinema to watch "The Killing Fields" which was harrowing and thought provoking.

Today we travelled to the school and taught again in the morning. In the afternoon, we carried on with our construction work. We made good progress as a team. Afterwards, we joined the school ceremony to celebrate the money they have been given from the local community. There was loads of traditional Cambodian music and many melodic prayers. Some monks joined the ceremony and the whole school chanted together. We then learnt some traditional Cambodian dancing and taught the older students our dancing. We also crashed the Year 12 leavers party as we signed their shirts and wished them all luck for the future. We had a quick shower then headed out for dinner to a restaurant called Rondeng. We all tried tarantula, crickets and frogs (even the vegetarians)! Lastly, we went to see a cultural shadow puppet show about an ancient Khmer legend. It was incredible to see the masks, dancing and artwork produced by the cast members!

We have loved reading your comments but it would be brilliant if everyone could mention the name of the person they would like the message to reach!
Lots of Love,
Team Cambodia

Day 2 & 3 of our project

We have been having an amazing time so far and have experienced so much of the Cambodian culture already . Yesterday we began our placement at the school, teaching our English lessons with our partners. We were given two topics such as family, food, weather and body parts and we planned lessons to teach the children. Each class consists of up to 50 pupils and it was very refreshing to enter an atmosphere full of people who were all so enthusiastic to learn. We used repetition and fun games which we all enjoyed. Then we left and went to the restaurant which is hosting us during our placement for lunch and relaxed, until the hard work began. We were given the task of making a concrete path from the main building to the toilets. We began by clearing the area and digging a channel. This was very hard work in the hot, humid conditions. We then broke up lots of bricks and rocks using hammers to form a base. By the end of a couple of hours we were all filthy and in desperate need of a shower! We could clearly see what we had achieved during the afternoon. After dinner, some of us went to the local shopping centre and supermarket, we went and got some ice cream for pudding. We were a bit disappointed as it had stopped raining By the time we left the hotel so we didn't get to test out our ponchos!

Today we continued our teaching with more confidence and knowledge and we had lots more fun with the children. We took our improvements from the day before and were much more productive. After another delicious lunch we headed out to the school again for our renovation project. We began to put concrete over the path, which was a challenging experience as we had to mix it by hand with limited tools, but we loved doing it. We returned to the hotel for a well needed shower as we were all very muddy and got ready for dinner. We headed out to the 'Friends' restaurant which provides training and job opportunities for disadvantaged young people. We had lovely food and visited the gift shop to support this worthy cause.

We have arrived!

We have arrived safe and sound in Cambodia! The flights were long and tiring (but we did get to sit upstairs on the plane from Heathrow to Bangkok!) We were met at Phnom Penh airport by our rep from Projects Abroad, Sithar, and came to the hotel. We had some time to shower and unpack before lunch. We then had our induction talks before having a couple of hours to catch some sleep as we didn't really sleep on the flight. After this we got to explore the local area before heading to a lovely restaurant for our welcome dinner. We all tried some local Cambodian dishes with lots of us having the 'fish amok' - it was all very tasty! Then back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

Today was our placement induction day. We will be teaching English to high school students, we visited the school on Silk Island and met the principal to discuss what we will be doing. In he morning's we will be teaching and in the afternoon we will be doing some renovation at the school including laying a concrete path and repainting classrooms. We started to plan our first lessons over lunchtime. In the afternoon we went to a silk farm and learnt how silk is made before coming back across the river to do some shopping in the central market...lots of elephant trousers were bought!

Dinner this evening was at the 'Titanic' restaurant before coming back to continue planning our lessons ready to teach to our first classes tomorrow.

Things we've treasured so far:

Learning about our renovation project and visiting the market

Falling asleep the second our heads touched our pillows

The fish amok  and all the nice food especially ice cream in both resturants 

Finally seeing the beautiful buildings and culture

Planning and Prep Weekend 3

Saturday:
We all arrived at 9:30am on the Saturday morning. Putting up the ridge tents was done first, with much difficulty! We gathered round and decided to play rounders, then manhunt and then sardines in the woods. Elevensies was next, we ate cakes and fruit and drank squash. We then learnt about hygiene through an experiment with LOTS of glitter to see how far germs spread.  We learnt to "properly" wash our hands before tucking into our packed lunches. We then got ready to go to the climbing wall, then we climbed up 3 walls each, ranging in difficulty. Exhausted but filled with adrenaline, we returned to our muddy field, half of us collected wood and broke it up, while the other half began to collate the scrapbook.
Then we struggled to make fires for our dinners, in the end Danni "the expert" had to take over. Once our fires were lit, we cooked some very, very nice fajitas. Then we made our beds and after made chocolate bananas on the embers. 
Afterwards, we joined the Scouts' campfire, which we had booked! We sung many songs with the Scouts, then Charlotte got up and lead a few songs herself. The Scouts then left, we toasted marshmallows on the burning hot fire. 
Finally, we got ready for bed and went to sleep. 

Sunday:

During the night there had been a massive thunderstorm with lightening that lit up our tents, which was very different to the scorching temperatures from the day before! As soon as we woke up we began to get ready by changing and packing all of our bags and bedrolls. Before breakfast there was a bit of time to go into the woods, so we played sardines. The leaders cooked us a delicious breakfast of eggy bread and baked beans, which was much appreciated after sleeping in the tents! We then finished packing all of our things, before heading off to our activity for the day, which was crate stacking. Some of us went up in pairs and some of us went up alone. The best technique seemed to be ‘pretending to be a tree’, which meant a few people managed to make a particularly high stack! We then went to the shop to buy badges. Whilst we were cooking lunch on the fires, we all put down the tents and completely tidied up our area. We had cheese burgers and barbequed vegetables for lunch followed by cakes, biscuits and fruit. We quickly washed up all of the pots we had been using before the parents meeting, and then we finally headed home after another great weekend.